Hello everybody. I got into film photography recently, love everything about it. I think digital and film have their own place into photography, but film just gave me freedom from long hours into post production. I've been shooting for 6 months now, and I feel like I want something more than street photography, portraits, architecture. I mean ok the magic with film is message, composition, lighting, colors sometimes. But what about crazy stuff like levitation, or a hanged man on the wall? I mean something conceptual. Is it possible to get crazy stuff directly on film with no post production? If there's anyone who got conceptual with film, please share your stories.
H Nicu.My photography journey started with film in 1971 and then later on used digital side by side with film in weddings until I felt digital was safe enough and good enough to use.When you say "crazy stuff with no post production" there were always options but not necessarily crazy..We used filters for special effects in camera such as frosting the edges of a bridal portrait and double exposures using a split filter mask..
Most special effects apart from using filters was done in the dark room. Any thing like a man on the wall etc. you could always resort to physical props.
People also did peel apart polaroid transfers for special artistic effects which were different at every attempt.Many of the digital processes are derived from repeating digitally older practices.As is the case now, people still used to push the boundaries with film for artistic effects. Nothing much has changed except for the medium.Keep going with your film shooting. I still like to shoot film but not as often as I would like to. I need to discipline myself by only taking a film camera with me on an outing. These days with phone cameras so good it is a good option to shoot film and have your phone as a digital back up or shoot the two mediums side by side which I did on a number of weddings.Whenever I go on a holiday I always have about 3 film cameras and a couple of digital slrs with me.Sadly I still mainly shoot digital when I do that.
Thank you Geoff for your great answer. There are some notions that I'm not familiar with, but I will study piece by piece what you have written.
Of course it's possible! You will need access to a darkroom so you can print with an enlarger. Getting on FILM probably won't happen.
Look at Man Ray and Jerry Uelsmann. No photoshop in the 70's :)
Thank you for hints :)
I got into film photography as a pro in the early 1960s. Back "in the day" there were lots of dudes and gals who spent many a weary hour in the darkroom doing "post production." Digital has not really brought us anything much new, it's just made it easier. HDR was first done when, in the 1870s? Glass plate, tripod and three negatives shot at different f stops to get detail in the sky, beach and ocean. Of course newspapers had a whole room full of airbrush artists to "clean up" a photo for the evening newspaper. They'd take a photo shot in the morgue and airbrush the deceased guy's eyes open to make it look like it was taken when he was alive. They'd clean up the background to cut the litter to make the photo clearer because of poor early printing methods. Actress/singer Cher once complained to me that the tabloid newspapers had a habit of taking a photo of Elvis and pasting it on their front page with a photo of her making, it look like they were on a hot date together "I never met the man," Cher told me.